‘Still time to do it right’ says Muskrat Falls committee chair

Trina RoacheAPTN InvestigatesA committee set up to address key concerns about the hydro project at Muskrat Falls in Labrador says people can expect information to start flowing soon.

“We want to be completely transparent. People can be critical of us because we’ve been sort of invisible at the moment because we’ve been too busy trying to get some answers,” said Ken Reimer, chair of the Independent Advisory Committee.

The committee was set up as a key part of a deal brokered between the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Innu and Inuit leaders. That deal effectively ended a five-day Indigenous-led occupation of the Muskrat Falls site in October 2016.

(The October 2016 protest at Muskrat Falls. Photo Trina Roache)

At the heart of the protests were concerns that trees and topsoil left in the reservoir will poison the waterways and contaminate traditional foods.

“I realize there’s been frustrations because there seemed to be an absence of activity but as soon as I got on board we’ve been going fast and furious,” said Reimer.

“We’re working on getting a website up and running before Christmas.”

The goal of the committee is threefold; to mitigate, monitor and come up with a long-term plan to manage any impacts from methylmercury.

“If we had more time, we could have consulted with people,” said Reimer. “If we’d been at this earlier, maybe we could have been in the public and able to calm fears at this point, anyway.”

Instead, the committee has been working flat out for the past few months to go over all the data collected so far related to water quality.

“It’s not okay. It’s not okay to poison people downstream with methylmercury”

In late September, Labrador land protector Denise Cole led a dozen people from Labrador to St. John’s to the head office of Nalcor Energy, the provincially-owned crown corporation in charge of the Lower Churchill project at Muskrat Falls.

“It’s to send a message,” said Cole. “That it’s not okay. It’s not okay to poison people downstream with methylmercury.”

The group blocked the entrances to keep Nalcor employees from getting to work and Cole read a statement.

On the day APTN interviewed her last month, she bustled around her kitchen, cleaning a salmon her father caught during the summer in Rigolet.

“This is the way I grew up, this is what I lived on,” said Flowers. “It was imperative for my father to have salmon and trout in the summer. That’s what he fed his family on. To have that in jeopardy, because it is in jeopardy now, it becomes like a strip off of me.”

Reimer said based on the preliminary data he’s seen so far he would eat anything of Lake Melville.

“And I would feed it to my grandchildren as well,” he said.

“But I want an expert to look at that and that’s some of the first information we’ll get out on the website.”

Reimer is wading into new territory.

A reservoir for a dam has never been cleared before.

In general, the issues around mercury poisoning are dealt with after the fact with warning signs about consumption.

But he says even in a megaproject three quarters done, there’s still time to take action.

“I do think we’re in time,” he said. “If the data, and again, I want to be cautious here, I don’t want to draw conclusions prematurely, but I think that we do have time to implement, if we decide something like topsoil removal, targeted topsoil removal is going to be an effective strategy, then we think there’s still time to do that.”

The committee already issued three recommendations in September.

It asked Nalcor to do a feasibility study on removing soil and vegetation, to improve both its water monitoring program and its own model for predicting methylmercury production.

But the mistrust of Nalcor Energy runs deep in Labrador.

“Recommendations are not a mandate. It’s not an order,” said Cole. “They come so late. Everything is so late. So as these little small wins are gained by us, Nalcor is proceedings at turbo speed with this project.”

But Reimer said the recommendations do carry weight.

“I have felt a sense of cooperation from all parties,” said Reimer. “When I ask Nalcor for something, information or data, they are very timely in getting it to me. They take the work of committee very seriously. I’ve certainly not been frustrated in any way by waiting for any request to be satisfied. I’m hopeful.”

Optimistic, but also working under tight deadlines.

Reimer’s contract as chair is up in March. He’s confident the work of the committee will continue whether he stays on or not.

In the meantime, Reimer is expecting a lot of data to land on his desk by Christmas, from soil samples to water monitoring results, to reviews of previous studies on the amount of methylmercury in both food and people in Labrador.

He’s hoping to have information and updates posted on the committee’s future website by the New Year.

2 Responses to “‘Still time to do it right’ says Muskrat Falls committee chair”

Please, release the entire document and all data and studies to the Public… not to government first, not to nalcor first… otherwise the real story, if it is detrimental to their project, will never see the light of day.